Assam Police have launched an investigation into a local youth who has reportedly joined the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen terrorist outfit in Jammu and Kashmir. A picture of Qamer Uz Zaman, of Assam's Hojai district, has gone viral and claims his code name is 'Dr Hurairah'. Zaman's family have dramatically declared that he is a 'traitor' and they wouldn't mind if government has him killed.

Speculation that Zaman had joined the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen was sparked by the picture which showed him holding what seems to be an AK-47 assault rifle. The image identified him as an MA English graduate from Assam.

Authorities have said the probe will not only be confined to the Kashmir angle, but also to see if youth are being trained by such Pakistan-backed terrorist outfits and sent back to their own home regions to foment terrorism.

Zaman's mother Shahira Khatun has told reporters that if he had indeed joined the terrorist outfit, he has become an enemy of the country and should be killed. "We have not been able to contact him since July 2017. If my son is associated with such an organisation, the government can shoot him, I do not need such a son," Khatun was quoted as having said. "I will not even accept his dead body. We are with the nation," she added. His brother Mufidul too has reportedly branded him a 'traitor'.

Zaman's family had last spoken to him in July 2017, and has been trying to find him ever since. They had filed a missing person report on him. Zaman had returned to India in 2006, after spending a few years in the US. He had then moved to Kashmir, and had told his family that he was running a garment business there. He had last gone home to Assam in July 2017, to drop off his wife and three-year-old son. He hasn't been heard from since.

Assam Police say they are sharing the details of their investigation with the National Investigation Agency (NIA).